Simmons' Secret
by ashes and cinders
Summary: My Submission for the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. : Women of S.H.I.E.L.D. Week, Wednesday Prompt: Secrets. Skye notices that everything is not quite right with our favorite bio-chemist and is willing to stay up however late it takes to drag it out of her.


**AN: Okay, this is the first time I've participated in one of these "week" prompts so please go easy on me. Love FitzSimmons so when I saw Wednesday's theme was "secrets" I had to write for it. I would also like to ask my readers to check out the poll on my profile. **

**Disclaimer****: I don't own Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I wish I did. **

Everyone could tell that something had been off with the resident bio-chemist since her recent leap off the BUS. They had all tried to help, in their own way, but with the recent case load no one had had much time to devote to making sure that the usually perky Jemma Simmons was okay.

It wasn't until after the cleanup at Greenwich University was finished and what Skye liked to call the "Asgardian Rage Spear" was safely in lock up that the team finally got some down time. It was then that the resident hacker noticed that the usually bubbly genius was being quiet and slightly withdrawn. She wasn't talking nearly as much as usual. In fact, she would hardly say anything unless someone struck up a conversation with her.

Skye just observed for two days, realizing that if she was going to confront the genius on her strange behavior she was going to need a rock solid explanation behind it or said genius would give her some lame excuse of how she was "fine, just tired", smile, and walk away.

Finally, on the third day she decided to confront Simmons. She decided to wait until the others went to sleep. Usually Simmons was in bed early because she woke up the earliest out of all of them. Skye had no fear of Simmons being in bed early, Skye had stayed up late a few nights or gotten out of bed to get a glass of water and had caught Simmons up more than a few times since the virus incident.

It was around 1 am when everyone had finally bunked down for the night. Skye waited in her bunk with her door cracked open knowing that when Simmons came to the cabin she would be able to hear it. An hour later she heard the patter of feet in the cabin, she made it to her door in time to see a flash of strawberry blonde hair as Jemma walked towards the kitchenette.

_ 'Perfect,'_ thought Skye.

Skye tip-toed into the kitchenette, just as she reached it, Jemma turned around. Her eyes were red rimmed and a few stray tears were rolling down her face. Just looking at her crying into her cup of tea was enough to break Skye's heart. When Jemma looked up as she was about to head back to her room she spotted Skye. Jemma hastily tried to wipe away the tears with the sleeve of her night shirt.

"You wanna talk about it?" asked Skye.

"There's nothing to talk about Skye, I'm fine," answered Jemma with her eyes on the ground.

"I may not be as smart as you, but I'm not blind. Come on, maybe talking it out will help."

"I'm fine Skye."

"You don't look fine to me," said Skye with a desperate look in her eyes. "Jemma, we're friends, you can trust me."

Jemma looked up and looked Skye straight in the eye.

"This stays between the two of us, you won't tell anyone?"

"Not if you don't want me to" replied Skye.

Jemma continued to look at her, trying to figure out if she could trust her.

"I have your word?" Asked Jemma, continuing to stare down Skye.

"Yes," replied Skye with a nod.

Jemma walked over to the couch in the lounge area and sat down, Skye followed and sat on the chair opposite it.

After a few minutes of silence with Jemma looking down at her hands and twiddling her thumbs Skye blurted out:

"This is about Fitz, isn't it?"

"Wha- what would give you that idea?!"

"You've been acting hesitant around him since the virus incident."

"I- I have not!"

Skye gives her a look that clearly says, "Really? You expect me to believe that?".

Jemma gives her a defeated look, "Every- every time I try to sleep I see Fitz banging at the door of the lab, begging me not to jump or-," Jemma stopped talking.

"Or what?"

"That I didn't jump in time and that Fitz got hurt because he was so close to me, none of you were hurt, which I know is impossible because the pulse I would've emitted would've taken the BUS out of the sky but-"

"Jemma-"

"He was just laying there, bleeding, not breathing, and it was my fault..." Jemma trailed off as she looked down at the floor like it was the most interesting thing in the world.

"That's not the only thing bothering you, is it?"

"Huh?"

"I know there's gotta be more to this than just a nightmare, Jemma. What else is wrong?"

Jemma had this haunted look appear in her eyes and Skye almost regretted asking, but she knew that talking about it would help her friend.

"When I was falling..."

Skye waited for her to continue.

"All I could think about was him..."

"Fitz." It was a statement, not a question.

"Fitz." Jemma replied. Skye could hear the tears in her voice with the next sentence.

"I've heard people say that your life flashes before your eyes when you're about to die, but all I could think about was him."

"You have feelings for him don't you?"

"Skye that's- that's ridiculous!"

At the look on Skye's face, Jemma looks down, bashfully blushing, and says, "Yes."

"Then why don't you tell him?"

"Tell him! Come on Skye, look at me!" She whispers harshly as she gestures towards her body. She hesitates, "What could he possibly see in me?"

"You don't think you're good enough for him. Jemma if you could see the way he looks at you-"

"He only sees me as a friend."

"He's totally into you!"

"Come on Skye, he's my best friend, I don't want to ruin that on the delusional hope that he _might_ care for me that way. He'd never go for me." Jemma looks up at Skye again, and with that hopeless look on her face Skye can feel her heart breaking in two. "He deserves better."

"Better? Jemma-," Skye never gets to finish.

"I'm tired, I'm going to sleep Skye." Just as she's walking toward her pod she turns around and asks, "You won't breathe a word of this?"

As Skye nods her head in the affirmative she can feel her heart shatter for the young bio-chemist.

"Good night, Skye."

"Good night, Jemma." Skye walked to her bunk.

What neither of the women knew is that a certain engineer had been coming up the stairs from the lab when the conversation began and stopped short below the top of the stairs when he heard his name mentioned.

The first thing that crossed his mind when he heard the conversation end was, _'She loves me!'. _The second thing that crossed his mind was far less pleasant, _'How am I going to fix this?'_

**Thoughts? Comments? Advice? I'll take anything but flames. "To continue or not to continue?", that is the question. **


End file.
